30 Film Directors Who Have Never Made a Bad Movie

by Jason Dietz, Metacritic Features Editor – June 9, 2018

Recently, we looked at 30 filmmakers who made only one well-reviewed movie over their entire careers, and then 25 great directors who missed out on perfection by just one film. But there is an even more elite group of film directors who have received critical acclaim for every single film they ever directed. In other words, they've never received anything but a green Metascore for one of their features.

How many of those directors can you guess? Check them all out in the gallery above. Note that we only looked at directors who have made at least five films since 1980.

11 of 30 photo by Christine Plenus

Jean-Pierre & Luc Dardenne

The Belgian brothers boast an impressive filmography that stretches back to the 1980s and includes a pair of Cannes Palme d'Or wins. Even including their most recent release, the uncharacteristically sub-great The Unknown Girl, the duo's career average Metascore is 82.

Note that the Dardennes have a few early features (including 1987's Falsch and 1992's Je pense à vous, plus a handful of documentaries from the early 1980s) that do not have a score because they were not released in the United States. Next up for the brothers is Ahmed, a timely tale about a Belgian teenager who begins to embrace violent religious extremism.

The full filmography (as director):
82 La Promesse (The Promise) (1996)
76 Rosetta (1999)
86 The Son (2002)
87 L'Enfant (The Child) (2005)
80 Lorna's Silence (2008)
87 The Kid with a Bike (2011)
89 Two Days, One Night (2014)
65 The Unknown Girl (2016)

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